%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=zjvqmhqg22vea17yunocfhoi%% Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread.%%[[quoteright:340:[[Creator/KatrinSalyers http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wall_of_text_1664.gif]]]][[caption-width-right:340:Too Long; Didn't Read]]

->''"Shakespeare wrote that 'brevity is the soul of wit.' He did not then add 'unless you're writing a webcomic.' It applies to everything, and don't tell me you're arrogant enough to claim to know better than Shakespeare."''-->-- '''[[Creator/BenCroshaw Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw]]'''

%%Do not deliberately rewrite this article to be a Self Demonstrating Article. Spare us.%%

A paragraph should ideally be a smooth, succinct experience that goes through a bit of exposition, illustrates an idea, sums up the point, and primes the reader for the next paragraph.

Ideally.

In practice, a writer can get too caught up in all the things they have to say and fail to organize it all into bits an ordinary human being would be able to digest. The end result is a huge run-on paragraph that makes it difficult to recall the original point of it, if there was one in the first place. The reader's eyes glaze over and all they see is a [[TitleDrop wall of text.]]

This afflicts all written media, but it is particularly infamous for its effect on ComicBooks. One of the first things learned in comics is how to use dialogue bubbles effectively; a writer not allocating space carefully will end up covering their panel with a bunch of text and white space. Eventually the reader will realize that they're just looking at plain text rather than the vivid form of storytelling by imagery that comic books are famed for. TL;DR indeed.

At best, a Wall Of Text is just a signal of really heavy exposition. At worst, they are a warning sign that the author is [[AuthorFilibuster soapboxing about something]].

SpeakingInPanels is often a way to evade this trope while recounting what happened.

If SpeechBubblesInterruption are used to show it's not being listened to, see WallOfBlather. If the text is ''literally'' written on a wall in-universe, it might be a RoomFullOfCrazy. See ReadTheFinePrint if these kinds of text actually contain very important information. OminousMultipleScreens is sort-of the video equivalent.

%% The next thing to Self-Demonstrating Article...For {{egregious}} examples right in ThisVeryWiki, observe the venerable entrants of TropeOverdosed.----!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Advertising]]* [[ParodiedTrope Parodied]] in the Mac ad [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXiLCsbz9Hc Legal Copy]] when PC starts making claims about his performance, causing a disclaimer to appear on-screen. Said disclaimer becomes bigger and bigger throughout the commercial, ending with PC saying "[=PCs=] are now 100% trouble-free!" causing the disclaimer to fill the whole screen.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime]]* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': [[{{Pun}} Heh.]] The "Information Available For Public Disclosure" eyecatches can usually be read in the short pause, but the Episode 25 one is quite long. It's a story about a miner that sought to tunnel under Wall Sina to live there, working harder and harder at his goal. [[spoiler: [[ShaggyDogStory He goes missing after telling a friend about it, then some time after everyone searches for him the friend disappears, too]]. It's unclear whether the Wall Cult disposed of them or whether the Titans within the Walls ate them.]]* A meta example happens in ''Anime/FullMetalPanicFumoffu''. The class takes a trip out to the local forests in order for the students to draw artworks of nature. One of the professors who accompanies the students constantly goes on a wild tangent discussing the philosophical relationships between science, nature, art, and well... lets just say a lot of [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness Big Words]] are used in a very, [[MotorMouth very fast manner.]] The official subtitles literally takes up the '''ENTIRE SCREEN''' when he's ranting.* Provided by Genos in ''Webcomic/OnePunchMan''. Wondering how an origin story sounds like without a flashback? [[http://www.mangareader.net/onepunch-man/7/6 Now you know. ]] * While the red, [[BiggerIsBetter bold]] text in ''Anime/KillLaKill'' doesn't cover the entire screen at times, it displays so much, it covers a good portion of the episode time. Especially, the last one.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]* ''ComicBook/{{Warrior}}'':** The short-lived comic, based on [[ProfessionalWrestling pro wrestler]] The UltimateWarrior, was filled from cover to cover with walls of text, much of it consisting of incomprehensible, made-up jargon. Much of the text centers on Warrior's strange pseudo-philosophy that's quite out there. To see just how crazy and nonsensical it is, almost to the point it is hard to believe it could exist, see WebVideo/TheSpoonyExperiment's [[http://www.thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/bt/spoonyone/reviews/7238-warrior1 review of it]]. Making it worse was that sometimes it was printed in font colors that were unreadable on the background color. The sheer volume of text and its insane, babbling nature really can't be overstated here. There's a text box for the crazy narrator, a text box for "Warrior"'s crazy inner monologue, and ''then'' thought bubbles for "Warrior"'s crazy thoughts. It amounts to, at ''minimum'', a good 4-5 paragraphs per page...** In the same tradition (though more tongue-in-cheek, obviously) Chris Sims of the Invincible super-blog does a feature he calls [[http://www.the-isb.com/?cat=201 Warrior Wisdom Fridays]] that feature one of Ultimate Warrior's characteristically incoherent Wall Of Text rants, plus a hilarious AltText haiku summary.* Dave Sim's ''ComicBook/CerebusTheAardvark'' went beyond the WallsOfText and into chronic AuthorFilibuster when the comic itself was repeatedly put on hold to make space for multi-page misogynistic rants of plain text. It does get over that phase eventually[[note]] the walls of text, not the misogyny[[/note]], then later falls back into it.* Creator/DonRosa's earlier works (particularly ''The Pertwillaby Papers'') had tight-packed expository speech bubbles. Not so much in his Disney comics, though; the "Disney remakes" of his stories are a good example of how one can thin the information flow without really affecting the ''net amount'' of information conveyed to the reader.* One issue of ''ComicBook/HowardTheDuck'' was 22 pages of text-with-an-illustration of Creator/SteveGerber apologizing for not having a fully-formed comic ready for publication that month.* Creator/ECComics had a pattern: the dialogue was put on the page before the artwork was drawn. Al Feldstein wrote his scripts in pencil directly onto the storyboards as he came up with it. This often meant that around 90% of the panel was pure text, with the art shoehorned into what was left. Some comics would end with a panel that was nothing ''but'' text to explain the story. The exception are the stories that Harvey Kurtzman drew, as well as the ones he wrote and storyboarded for other artists.* ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'' comic series doesn't quite go to those extremes, but since it's a ''very'' CompressedAdaptation, there are quite a few pages full of text.* The comic adaptation of ''Literature/TheStand'' basically takes most of the narration from the [[DoorStopper really long book]] and puts it in dialogue boxes over the action as it is happening.* In ''ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica'', vol 3, issue 1, a wall of text is used to show ''[[MotorMouth just how much]]'' Cyclone talks.* Parodied in ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}} as you have never seen him before''. Asterix delivers a barrage of verbiage that occupies three quarters of the panels and ends up putting Obelix to sleep.* The problem has been endemic long enough in the comics industry to make famous one particular work offering a way to patch it: "[[http://momentofcerebus.blogspot.com/2012/07/wally-woods-22-panels-that-always-work.html Wally Wood's 22 Panels That Always Work]], or Some Interesting Ways to Get Some Variety into Those Boring Panels Where Some Dumb Writer Has a Bunch of Lame Characters Sitting Around and Talking for Page After Page!" Also available in [[http://abbadabba.com/wallywood/wallywood22panels.pdf PDF]].* In an interview, celebrated comic scribe Creator/LarryHama, a penciler turned writer, observed that the format of Marvel Comics' books in the 1970s and early 1980s was often guilty of this, bemoaning the overuse of captions. "You'd have a caption covering 3/4 of a panel, [[NarratingTheObvious describing the content of the panel it was covering!]]"* [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in ''ComicBook/AmericanSplendor'', as the story is less about the pictures and more about character dialog and Harvey Pekar's inner monologue.* Done tongue-in-cheek in ''ComicBook/TheSpirit''. When a suspect (a comic book artist) expresses an extreme hatred for his (currently dead) coworker's tendency to indulge in this trope, the Spirit replies that he thinks that sometimes wordiness is necessary in comic books -- only instead of just saying that, he gives it in the form of a CharacterFilibuster [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall while Commissioner Dolan cautiously eyes the massive speech balloon that engulfs the panel]].* Creator/ScottMcCloud demonstrated the disadvantage of it in a strip about an UpperClassTwit: At first, he's enjoyed about making the Best Party Ever; then he gets confused about what the friend of him said; then he's shocked because said friend can't come to the party; then he's sad because the party is nothing without him. In one panel, you simply cannot demonstrate four different feelings; break it up, and it works.* Creator/BrianMichaelBendis's unique way of writing dialogue has a habit of [[http://longboxgraveyard.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/bendis-dialogue.jpg?w=604&h=508 ending up as this]], with it being especially prominent in series like ''ComicBook/{{Powers}}''.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Strips]]* The online archive of the surreal Brown University newspaper comic ''Burble'' is fully aware of its large bits of dialogue; despite its high quality compared to most other strips at the time, it was mocked (and later self-mocked) for "too many words".* ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' once [[http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j175/muzition/peanuts.jpg?t=1252462853 lampshaded]] it by having Linus, after a vast amount of talk, comment to Charlie Brown that a contemporary complaint is that there's far too much talking and not enough action in comic strips.* ''ComicStrip/MallardFillmore'' often doesn't even draw the character's ''body'', instead crowding piles and piles of text around a floating disembodied head.* ''ComicStrip/ThisModernWorld'' also has the piles of text around a head. Lampshaded by the artist on more than one occasion.* Jeremy "Norm" Scott's ''ComicStrip/HsuAndChan'' comics can get '''VERY''' wordy at times. While the walls scare off new readers, fans of the series will usually claim that Norm's style of humor justifies the intense word count. The comic's creator is aware of the wordiness of his comics and likes to joke about it constantly on his website.-->'''Norm:''' (''about the issue ''Deep) Oddly enough, nobody complained about the wordiness in THIS comic. It's possible nobody ever made it to the end.* In ''ComicStrip/{{Mafalda}}'', each time [[GossipyHens Susanita]] starts telling gossip about the neighbours her speech bubble becomes a Wall of Text. On one occasion Felipe's body gets covered in text, until Manolito "saves him" by arriving and greeting them, breaking the flow of gossip.* German comic ''ComicStrip/{{Rudi}}'' is (in)famous for this and sometimes lampshades it.%% * ''ComicStrip/{{Cathy}}'' had this on occasion.%% * Bill Hinds' ''Tank [=McNamara=]'' does this on a regular basis.* ''ComicStrip/BeetleBailey'' had Plato doing this now and then. He wrote philosophical screeds as bathroom grafitti.* ''ComicStrip/TheKChronicles'' is very much this. It's not unusual to have strips where a majority of the panels are nothing but text, with very little actual drawings.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]* At the [[Fanfic/OfficialFanfictionUniversity Official Fanfiction Academy]] [[Franchise/StarTrek of Starfleet]], some of the classrooms have literal Text Walls. (Recycled from the students' fanfics.)[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]* The opening crawl of ''Film/AloneInTheDark2005''.* In the documentary ''Film/{{Crumb}}'', Creator/RobertCrumb flips through his brother's old amateur comics to show the brother's mental breakdown. With each page, the drawings become more and more pushed back by larger and larger bubbles crammed with text, until finally the drawings are discarded and Crumb is just flipping through page after page of microscopic text. It's quite creepy.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]* Works from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries tended towards this, with paragraphs that sometimes ran for ''pages''; remodeling these walls for modern printings isn't an option, however, since they were frequently ''single sentences'' with dozens of clauses and [[ColonCancer semicolon cancer]] out the wazu, preventing stylistic renovations without violating rules against line breaks in the middle of a sentence. Often this was because the authors were paid by the word; in serial works, editors wouldn't cut off in the middle of a sentence. * Creator/CharlesDickens's style is quite wordy. The discussion Scrooge has with Marley in ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'' is very short by his standards. (Then again, he WAS paid by the word...)* Creator/HenryJames's style includes almost impenetrably long sentences and paragraphs.* Hardly anybody in the ''Literature/AnneOfGreenGables'' series is as prone to this as Anne herself, who, especially in the first book, has a tendency to ramble on for pages (longer when Marilla is not there to interrupt her). Fortunately for both the characters' sanity and the readers', Marilla constantly [[{{LampshadeHanging}} lampshades]] this, leading to amusing scenes where Marilla tells Anne to stop talking, whereupon Anne starts to go off on a tangent about how hard it is for her shut up ... and then gets distracted and starts building an [[{{Irony}} ironic]] Wall of Text.* The novel ''The Rotter's Club'' has a sentence that is apparently [[UpToEleven 13,955 words long.]]* Most people's first impression of Literature/TheBible. The genealogies are necessary to trace Jesus' ancestry, but they are long. * The book ''Literature/{{Ulysses}}'' ends with two sentences in its final chapter. The first one is 11,281 words long and the second is 12,931 words long.* [[UsefulNotes/NobelPrizeInLiterature Nobel Prize winner]] José Saramago loved to do this. Do not try to imitate him; he got a Nobel for a reason.* Another UsefulNotes/NobelPrizeInLiterature: Camilo José Cela wrote a novel made up exclusively of a single sentence lasting more than 100 pages: ''Cristo versus Arizona''. * In ''[[Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents The Reptile Room]],'' the narrator fills an entire page with the word "ever" over and over and over again when telling the reader not to fiddle around with electric devices unless they're Violet Baudelaire.* In ''Literature/{{Emma}}'', Miss Bates' speeches always become this to both the readers and the characters.* ''Literature/AtlasShrugged''. A certain someone smacks the reader in the face with a massive monologue made of capitalism; the first edition counted it at ''[[UpToEleven 70 pages]]''.* The literary style of maximalism emphasizes the author writing down ''everything'' that crosses his/her mind in the interest of painting a more "complete" picture of the author's/character's mindset.* ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves'' has some Wall Of Text passages that are deliberate - they illustrate a character (who, arguably, never had his shit completely together to begin with) slowly going crazier and crazier and talking and writing in more of a stream-of-consciousness style as his sanity leaves him. It's not pretty, and it's not supposed to be.* ''Literature/RobinsonCrusoe'' has sentences that go on for more then a page at a time, with heavy use of semicolons instead of periods. Check it out [[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/521 here]].* The first chapter of Creator/SamuelBeckett's novel ''Molloy'' consists of two paragraphs. Paragraph one is about a page and a half long; paragraph two usually exceeds ''eighty'' pages.* In the works of Creator/RobertoBolano:** ''Literature/TwentySixSixtySix'' has paragraphs that least around five pages, they are most common in the fourth part ("The Part About the Crimes") of the novel.** [[ExaggeratedTrope Exaggerated]] in ''By Night in Chile''. The whole novella consists in just two paragraphs, the first one takes almost the whole part of it, while the second is just a small sentence in the last page.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]* ''Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway'':** One "Let's Make a Date" game gave Wayne a very complicated role to play (something pretty close to "smooth rap star blindfolded and tied to the bed by his girlfriend gradually realizing the night is going terribly wrong"). When Greg saw the card (about 8"x8"), his reaction was a stunned "There's two paragraphs of text on this!"** Another playing of that game gave Ryan the role "Witch who entices the beast to her magic sleeping stool so she can break the magic spell and turn him into a prince". Again, the players made a number of jokes about the length of the suggestion.** The guessing-game personalities when Whose Line started in Britain were extremely simple ("a pirate," etc.), and gradually became longer and more convoluted over the next 18 seasons.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Manga]]* Similar to below (though not to the same extent) the manga ''Manga/{{Bakuman}}'' often has walls of text. To the point that chapters can often boil down to the heroes talking about manga.** The ''Manga/DeathNote'' manga can be particularly guilty of this at times. In the later volumes of the manga, the characters spend a ton of time out-thinking each other in a 3-way cat-and-mouse game, and all of the text used for that can be jarring, even though it's essential. To make it worse, it's complex enough that, if you blink and miss a crucial detail, you're totally lost.* As a self-styled modern day Sherlock Holmes, ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' more often than not feature walls (and walls and walls) of text while [[PullTheThread pulling the thread]] to reveal who did it. ''Manga/TheKindaichiCaseFiles'' can be just as wordy, but he at least has the courtesy to break up his walls of text.* ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' often falls into this, and even plays this one for comedy once, having Yue go off on lengthy ExpoSpeak tangents only to discover no one was listening.** Hakase also goes into a long rant with a speech bubble the size of your fist filled with tiny writing where she babbles to herself about Chachamaru's emotions.** Also when a scared-stiff Yue described the various impossibilities of the really, really big wyvern that was just about to eat her and Nodoka, ending with, "wait, what am I saying?"* ''Manga/MedakaBox'''s Emukae has a [[http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/9705/hitow.png whole double page spread]], consisting of four massive text bubbles the size of your hand, going on and on about how she wants to marry Hitoyoshi and have babies with him and have a nice big house and some pets and...* The ''Manga/{{Moyashimon}}'' manga features truly stupendous examples every single volume, complete with shrinking UsefulNotes/{{Fonts}}, characters crowded into tiny gaps between speech bubbles, and explanatory notes in page gutters. These are usually Professor Itsuki indulging in a CharacterFilibuster about science, or more specifically fermentation.* ''Manga/LiarGame'' is mostly a story about [[TheChessmaster chessmasters]] who try to beat each other in different "games" to see who is the best MagnificentBastard. To do so, they use [[ThePlan gambits after gambits]] based on game theories, psychology, economics, social studies and more. While they take the time to explain everything clearly, [[ViewersAreGeniuses a certain knowledge of these subjects greatly helps to understand.]]* PlayedForLaughs in a ''Manga/SoulEater'' extra chapter (later adapted into an anime BreatherEpisode) with [[SmallNameBigEgo Excalibur]] giving another rambling story which takes up half a page that the author ''[[BreakingTheFourthWall specifically tells us]]'' to skip because it's [[PhraseCatcher so annoying.]]* Also PlayedForLaughs in ''Webcomic/OnePunchMan'' when Genos introduces himself without an accompanying flashback. Saitama tells him to come back when he can summarise everything in one sentence of max ten words. * ''Manga/LevelE'' contains a couple examples of this. [[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/level_e/c003/22.html Here's one of the more gruesome ones.]] And yes, you have to read it all (or at least skim it) to understand the plot that is going on.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Print Media]]* An audiophile magazine featured an article lamenting the overuse of compression -- making the louds quieter and the quiets louder to even out the dynamic range of a recording. (There's even a term for it, it's "LoudnessWar".) Compression is useful for "punching up" the sound of a given track, since it evens out the dynamics and lets an engineer raise the volume without causing clipping. However, some modern recordings go a bit overboard with this.\\\THE ARTICLE THEN PROCEEDED TO DEMONSTRATE THE PROBLEM OF EXCESSIVE COMPRESSION [[SelfDemonstratingArticle WITH A PARAGRAPH WRITTEN ENTIRELY WITH ALLCAPS AND AS FEW LINE BREAKS AS POSSIBLE.]] GIVEN THAT ALL CAPITAL LETTERS ARE THE SAME HEIGHT, IT MAKES FOR ONE LONG MASS OF LETTERS THAT BECOME HARD TO READ THROUGH AND TIRES THE EYE OUT FROM HAVING TO MENTALLY SORT IT OUT AND INSERT LINE BREAKS. SIMILARLY, COMPRESSING EVERYTHING TO DEATH ELIMINATES THE DYNAMIC INTERPLAY OF THE VARIOUS INSTRUMENTS AND CREATES A MUDDLE WHERE EVERYTHING IS LOUD BUT NOTHING STANDS OUT, LIKE SOMEONE SHOUTING OVER A STRONG WIND. DYNAMIC INTERPLAY IS A KEY PART OF A LISTENABLE RECORDING: MOST POP MUSIC RECORDINGS TEND TO FOCUS ON VOCALS FIRST, FOLLOWED BY MELODIC ACCOMPANIMENT AND THE RHYTHM SECTION IS UNDERNEATH IT ALL TO SERVE AS A FOUNDATION UPON WHICH THE REST OF THE SONG IS PLACED, AND IT SHOULD BE APPARENT YET UNOBTRUSIVE; TO DO OTHERWISE MAKES IT SOUND BAD. NEVERTHELESS, THIS TECHNIQUE IS [[ExecutiveMeddling APPARENTLY MANDATED BY SUITS AT THE LABELS]] WHO BELIEVE THAT, SINCE IT MAKES THINGS SOUND LOUDER, IT WILL MAKE THEIR SONGS STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD ON THE RADIO, SORT OF LIKE HOW TV COMMERCIALS ARE LOUDER THAN REGULAR PROGRAMMING. UNFORTUNATELY, THIS LINE OF THINKING HAS TWO MAJOR FLAWS: IT CREATES AN UNLISTENABLE AMORPHOUS BLOB OF AUDIO THAT PEOPLE DO NOT WANT TO HEAR AND [[FollowTheLeader WHEN EVERYONE ELSE DOES THE EXACT SAME THING, NOBODY'S UNLISTENABLE AMORPHOUS BLOB OF AUDIO STANDS OUT ABOVE ANYONE ELSE'S]].\\\The metaphor proved to be a bit ''too'' apt, as the magazine then received a ton of letters to the editor complaining that they couldn't read the article because it was, well, a wall of text.* Textbooks. Some college texts books are literally solid walls of text that go for pages with no pictures, diagrams, or even ''paragraph breaks''. Also, the text is usually really tiny.* Manual pages for Linux/Unix commands are notorious for this.* European Spanish magazines and newspapers tend to be wordier than their Latin American counterparts, since Spaniards love detailed explanations. On the other side, Mexican magazines and newspapers (with few exceptions) generally try to get to the point more quickly than the European Spanish ones.* Old newspapers and magazines in general (at least until the 80s) used to feature longer articles.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]* ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}} 2: Durandal'' features [[http://marathon.bungie.org/story/blake.html#22 a terminal in the level Kill Your Television]] with no spaces or punctuation deliberately to be cryptic and vague. [[http://marathon.bungie.org/story/kytterm.html Fans did decrypt the message]], but, in typical old-school Bungie fashion, [[MindScrew it still didn't make much sense]].* If you make a rather wordy post on the ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' forum, some people will complain they were killed by your wall of text. Some {{Troll}}s will engage in wall of text contests to see if they can overload the forum display.--> Wall of Text crits you for [[OverNineThousand 9999]] damage.\\You cannot use that power after you have been defeated.\\You cannot use that power after you have been defeated.* On ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'''s official forums, people use TL;DR (Too long; didn't read) both offensively and defensively; someone building a wall of text will add "TL;DR version: Stuff", and people protesting will post just TL;DR. Sometimes people will lampshade their own wall building; one added "Edit: Remodeled Wall of Text, adding a door, a couple of windows and some nice flowerboxes" after breaking it up into paragraphs.** But this can also be subverted when readers simply didn't bother to read a long post. "TL;DR" can basically mean: "Your well thought out, and valid post was just too long to read, so I didn't bother."* ''VideoGame/TheNeverhood'' has a literal wall of text: the hall of Records, ''thirty-eight'' screens ''full'' of text for Klaymen to read, detailing the game's vast backstory in a format spoofing that of Literature/TheBible. Fortunately, reading any of the text is optional, although the game does force you to trek through the entire hall to fetch a PlotCoupon.* ''VideoGame/{{Sacred}} 2: Fallen Angel'' doesn't have extensive voice acting for many of its [=NPCs=]. In particular, [=NPCs=] that give you quests (which usually boil down to [[TwentyBearAsses go here and kill five wolves]]), will preface this with a page and a half of scrolled text detailing exactly ''why'' they want you to this. And if you're not playing on an HDTV, ''you won't be able to read a word of it''.* In one stage of ''VideoGame/WanganMidnight'', [[JokeCharacter Gatchan]] lets off two consecutive blocks of texts so big that ''they obscure your vision''. Taken UpToEleven in ''Maximum Tune 3'' and its upgrades, where not only does he have ''four'' blocks of text, he has the gall to say them NEAR THE END OF THE STAGE, making you more likely to lose.* In the early text-based game ''VideoGame/ColossalCave'', the description of the volcano.* It is apparently a popular joke in VideoGame/{{Touhou}} doujinshi to have Nitori or someone else go to lengthy descriptions (usually of technology) to the other characters who more likely than not are not actually listening. One doujin parodied it by having Alice get pushed against a wall by the huge speech bubble.* In ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', due to the lack of usable books or notes (Until 1.3), most downloadable scenarios, public servers, etc. will leave introductory text written on signs attached to walls near the initial spawn point. This results in ''literal'' walls of text.* [[TheOwlKnowingOne Kaepora Gaebora]], the blabbering owl from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime''. He shows up to give you pages and pages of information that is useful for your first playthrough, but useless and trivial for subsequent ones. The [[ScrollingText slow text-scrolling speed]] is far from helpful. At the end, he asks you if you want to hear his advice all over again, or if you understood what he just told you. Be forewarned that [[ScrappyMechanic the cursor will always default to whichever option makes him repeat himself]]. God help you if you were [[ButtonMashing mashing the A button]] throughout his blabbering. Fortunately, this is a downplayed example in that his wall of text can be mostly skipped by simply pressing the B button past a certain point.* In ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden V}}'', you must recruit Egbert by enduring his wall of text complaining about the Godwins. You can't press the button to advance the text, and the text moves ''slowly'' on purpose.* The original version of ''VideoGame/SpaceStation13'' had an infamously long and excessively complex backstory. It was so lengthy and impractical that most people just ignored the backstory completely. Some time later, the devs of the Goonstation server made up a much better received backstory that was much shorter and a little more to the point.* When play testing the game that would eventually become ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'', the developers found out that testers would often reset the game to [[SaveScumming load better items in Nook's shop or just to get better results]]. As this is a life simulation game where events happen in real time, this was seen as detrimental to the experience the game was giving. Learning from the experience of Kaepora Gaebora above, they realized that the one thing players hate is time wasted on scrolling through walls of text that could be better spent on actually playing the game. So they created an [=NPC=] character that reminded you to save your game should you just turn it off without saving, and did so by via Walls of Text and waste the player's time and thus, making resetting much more of a arduous task then in other games. This character would later become a mole named Mr. Resetti.* The end credits of ''VideoGame/MightyNo9'' last for four hours, and most of said credits is a list of [[SpecialThanks every single person who helped fund the game]]. That's ''67,226 different people''.* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'''s favorite method of storytelling and exposition is to have main NPC characters stand in a circle and talk at ridiculous length about pretty much anything, from whatever threat you're currently facing to [[ContemplateOurNavels philosophical pablum,]] all while the player character [[SilentProtagonist stands there with a stupid look on his face.]] Alphinaud and Minfilia are the ''worst'' about it, and the situation is usually exacerbated by the dev team's need to pad the story and stall for time before the next significant update or expansion.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Visual Novels]]* In ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', Kotomine and Rin are prone to expository lectures, Kotomine describing the functions and history of the Grail Wars, Rin less frequently on the mechanics of magic. Many {{Chekhovs Gun}}s have been obscured in the pages of pages of text, and the voice-acted version hardly saved them. This was impatiently Lampshaded by Shirou's internal monologue in the final arc: "Doesn't he ever shut up?"* When [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Rin]] in ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'' starts rambling, it's shown in the largest and fullest textbox in the game. [[NoPunctuationPeriod With barely if any punctuation.]][[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]* {{Webcomics}} usually [[LampshadeHanging lampshade]] their frequent large blocks of exposition, often in the narration or titling:** One solution used in ''WebComic/ElGoonishShive'' was to put a [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2002-07-08 very faint greyscale picture in the background of the text balloon]] as foreshadowing of the second half of the story arc; the exposition itself is also lampshaded in the dialogue as well.** ''WebComic/PennyArcade'''s "[[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10 I Hope You Like Text]]." This exchange was deemed ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome so awesome]]'' that it was put on a ''shirt'' which sells, apparently, very well.** Similarly lampshaded by an AuthorGuestSpot in [[http://www.missmab.com/Comics/Vol_922.php this]] ''Webcomic/DanAndMabsFurryAdventures'' strip.*** ''[=DMFA=]'' frequently uses the phrase "Wall of Text" during big exposition parts. Occasionally, you need to wear construction helmets.*** Fa'Lina recommends this as the preferred way to avoid having your mind read by cubi. Memorize a boring wall of text, such as legal babble.** ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'' notes that [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1538#comic "When people think 'funny', they think 'tons of words!'"]]* This is a criticism often levelled at ''WebComic/CtrlAltDel''. In fact, Website/FourChan came up with something called "CAD Rule" -- the law that if you take the first panel and the last panel of a ''Ctrl+Alt+Del'' strip, remove the text from the last panel, and post it, it will automatically be much funnier, as [[http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20060331 this strip]] "shows".** A similar device is the infamously named ''buckleybox'', a smaller but equally superfluous Wall Of Text used to reiterate something that ''[[DontExplainTheJoke should already appear in the actual comic]]'' visually, but may not due to odd dialogue placement, poor art not conveying it, or the assumption ViewersAreMorons.* ''WebComic/EightBitTheater'' does this a lot, like in [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2003/09/30/episode-336-elves-love-talking/ this]] strip. Note the title of the strip itself. And yes, there are more extreme ones.* ''Webcomic/GoodwillHeroes'' had an instance where [[http://www.goodwill-heroes.net/06-06-2011/bk01-ch02-pg03/ the Librarian]] belittled the main cast for raising their voices in a library.* ''WebComic/{{xkcd}}'' once had a wall of text that [[http://xkcd.com/160/ broke the frame of the comic]].* ''Webcomic/DresdenCodak'' has been accused of this ever since Aaron Diaz [[CerebusSyndrome added an actual plot]]. Possibly the strongest case can be found [[http://www.dresdencodak.com/cartoons/dc_041.html here]].* ''WebComic/TriangleAndRobert'' once had a main character killed by a Wall of Text exposition, [[http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?785 here]] and [[http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?786 here]].* ''Webcomic/SilentHillPromise'' The comic, like the [[AdventureGame adventure games]] it apes, supplements the images with plenty of narration.* ''WebComic/SomethingPositive'' has a bad case of this; ironically this is more noticeable since the comic is drawn to allow ample space from them, and is a good indication to the presence of strawmen. One particularly {{egregious}} [[http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp07232004.shtml example]] is lampshaded with the following:-->'''Warning:''' The following comic contains a lot of words. Those who are frightened or intimidated by reading are encouraged to seek entertainment elsewhere. We recommend a shiny ball of foil.* ''WebComic/IrregularWebcomic'' made fun of this trope [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1159.html here]]. Notable that it use the strings of text as a way to make fun of the trope instead of having some sort of LampshadeHanging outside the strings of text.** The annotation mentions this one time one of the author's fellow students weaponised this by putting the entirety of ''Theatre/RichardIII'' into his .plan file.* ''Webcomic/{{Subnormality}}'' '''is''' walls of text (except when it's {{Textplosion}}... Or totally wordless). It's right there in the sub-title: "Comix with too many words since 2007."** This trope is referenced by name at the start of [[http://www.viruscomix.com/page494.html this strip]].** [[http://www.viruscomix.com/page505.html This]] is the most excessive example of Wall of Text ever seen. 19 panels. ''2500 words.''* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'':** The comic played this one staggeringly straight [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0282.html in this comic]]. Though it ''did'' throw in LampshadeHanging: Vaarsuvius, monarch of overtalking, complains about the brevity -- [[FridgeBrilliance really quite a valid complaint in a trial]].** Later on lampshaded again with "[[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0558.html comic way too wordy for chief grukgruk sometimes.]]"* ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'' [[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/5p20/ stuck this]] on Frans Rayner when he explains his sinister plan in ''immense'' detail. Lampshaded in the alt text for the page where the author ''congratulates'' the reader for making it all the way through.* ''Webcomic/ErrantStory'', although it does manage to pull it off quite well with the storytelling style. In-story there's a lot of background, but the layout manages to nicely blend the text with the pictures most of the time.* This is a common criticism of ''Webcomic/BetterDays'' ([[{{Series/Firefly}} No relation]]), made only worse when it turns up in the supplementary porn comics.* Generally averted in ''Webcomic/SordidCityBlues'', except for [[http://sordidcityblues.com/archive.php?chapter=023&page=003 this little beauty]].* ''Webcomic/NotFromConcentrate'': [[http://nfccomic.com/index.php?comic=244 "Firetruck Red!!"]]* [[http://getagreenroom.thecomicseries.com/comics/3 This comic]] has a rather incoherent wall of text that is probably supposed to emulate background noise. The author herself comments that "Yeah, if you read EVERYTHING Ms. Florence is saying, you're insane."* PlayedForLaughs in ''WebComic/{{Precocious}}''. It happens whenever Suzette goes into a rant (could be about anything from her StrawFeminist [[http://www.precociouscomic.com/archive/comic/2009/03/24 philosophies]] to [[http://www.precociouscomic.com/archive/comic/2009/03/23 someone forgetting her name and believing it to be snobbery]]) It also uses WallOfBlather.* One of the many, ''MANY'' criticisms of ''WebComic/{{Sonichu}}''. To say that it's not so much a comic as it is wall after migraine-inducing wall of Comic Sans with the occasional illustration would be a more than accurate assessment of the visual onslaught on display here. It gets so bad that even the wiki [[http://www.sonichu.com/cwcki/Chris_and_writing#Visual_clarity throws up their hands in despair]].--> '''[=CWCki=]:''' Holy balls, try reading ''this''.* In ''Webcomic/PastelDefenderHeliotrope,'' [[Webcomic/UnicornJelly and possibly every other Jennifer Diane Reitz work,]] everyone communicates via text walls. [[UpToEleven Every page, every panel, every word bubble.]] [[{{Rimshot}} There are enough walls of texts in there to keep out Mongol invaders!]]* CaptainObvious in ''WebComic/TheWayOfTheMetagamer'' combines these with DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment.* ''Webcomic/FarOutThere'' had a very bad case of this [[http://www.drunkduck.com/Far_Out_There/index.php?p=360961 in its early days.]] Thankfully, the author is gradually learning to [[http://www.drunkduck.com/Far_Out_There/index.php?p=614943 show, not tell.]]* Though most walls of exposition are stowed away in boxes below the comic rather than panel bubbles, ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' has more than its share of walls of text. The ''[[LowerDeckEpisode Hivebent]]'' arc, in particular, [[WordOfGod has been described by Andrew Hussie as]] "[[http://www.formspring.me/andrewhussie/q/1158778979 a very vividly illustrated e-novel]]", rather than a webcomic.** In Act 6 Act 3, Homestuck [[ReconstructedTrope actively defends its method of long-winded narration]] by having a new character who hates long stories tell her arc in bullet points and skip straight to the end, depriving the reader of almost all the interesting details. A second character, pissed off at this display of storytelling, decides to [[CallBack recap the Ancestor Arc]] in the same bullet style, showing that while the initial version of that arc was fairly long-winded, the bullet-point style turns every character into a one-dimensional plot device and turns the narrative into a terribly-paced RandomEventsPlot.*** It justifies its Walls of Text even further by introducing a [[KnowNothingKnowItAll pseudo-intellectual]] Website/{{Tumblr}} [[TakeThat parody]] who prefers textwalling at people in such a densely-packed, long-winded format that it becomes [[UpToEleven impossible to read due to the text shrinking down to 1pt size to fit it all]]. He even almost refers to basic conversations with people as "monologues".*** Said parody's first three pages of speech comprised ''one sentence''. There's a reason Kankri is TheFriendNobodyLikes.* Once used in ''Webcomic/AtArmsLength'' as as [[http://atarmslength.smackjeeves.com/comics/676446/deerwitchproject-28/ weapon against Ally]].* In one ''Webcomic/QuestionableContent'' [[http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1276 strip]], Hannelore's InternalMonologue turns into one of these. By panel 3 there's too much to fit even with the text wrapping around her head.** Played straight examples abound as well.* Creator/{{Bleedman}}, aka Vinson Ngo, is usually guilty of this in his webcomics when it comes to exposition. ''[[Webcomic/GrimTalesFromDownBelow Grims Tales]]'' and ''Webcomic/SugarBits'' in particular.* Parodied in [[http://thesketchy.com/ic/2012/11/29/oh-great-another-hot-tub-comic this strip]] from ''Webcomic/SketchComedy'' discussing video games as a storytelling medium.* In early chapters of {{Webcomic/Lightbringer}}, many characters would go on [[CharacterFilibuster rants]] about one philosophical belief or another. Sometimes this would take up almost an entire page.* ''Webcomic/{{Housepets}}'': In [[http://www.housepetscomic.com/2013/09/16/letting-bygones-be/ this strip]] Sabrina's explanation of her past produces a wall of text separating the second and third panels; {{lampshaded}} by the AltText.-->'''Alt Text:''' Yes, it is literally a wall of text between panels 2 and 3. Get your tl;drs ready.* ''Webcomic/StickyDillyBuns'' usually tends towards brevity in its speech bubbles (being an artist-created comic); the use of a small wall of text [[http://www.stickydillybuns.com/strips-sdb/it_is_complex here]] thus makes a one-off comedy/characterisation point.* ''Webcomic/{{Earthsong}}'' uses these in a couple of early chapters when Earthsong explains what soulstones are and how they came about (which was rewritten into a flashback when the author did a ReTool, but it's still a very wordy one). After that, the chapter "The Journal" is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: a series of diary entries by Willow covering about a month.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]* The posts that Creator/SeanMalstrom has on his blog tend to vary in length, but when they get long, they get ''long''. As in, upwards of 14,000 words. He sometimes posts several of these ''in one day''.* ''Roleplay/TheBlackSandBar'', full stop. [[http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/gaia-commerce/t.45961697_1/]]* ''Blog/GeekRage'' has this as its basic mode.* The ''Roleplay/GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'' was a set of email campaigns, and some of the players were very enthusiastic participants. This happened a lot.* Website/TheOnion's articles [[http://www.theonion.com/articles/nation-shudders-at-large-block-of-uninterrupted-te,16932/ Nation Shudders at Large Block of Uninterrupted Text]] and [[http://www.theonion.com/articles/frustrated-obama-sends-nation-rambling-75000word-e,18516/ Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail]]* Video game blogger Tim Rogers is ''infamous'' for producing these, and in fact takes pride in it. If pressed to justify his extreme verbosity, his explanations vary from "it's just trolling" to "it's a legitimate style and you can take it or leave it".* Happens on Wiki/TheOtherWiki occasionally, more in the obscure-ish pages than others. Plot summaries can fall into this trap, especially if it gets overly detailed.* [=RPers=] in text chat based media (SL, IRC, Instant Messaging, Etc) will often call others out (Often jokingly) on Walls of text. Happens most often when you get people who like long posts mixed with people who make short posts. Often happens in the reverse as well if others harassing people in a more harsh way for posts that aren't long enough.* The credits section of episode 25 of ''WebAnimation/BattleForDreamIsland'' lists ''every single subscriber'' to the channel up until that point. In a really tiny font. It goes on for over twenty seconds.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]* Discussed in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Chowder}}'' where the title character tries to publish a magazine whose cover consists of one of these and is genuinely shocked to learn that a cover with a picture is more likely to attract potential buyers.* Inverted in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', where the quote at the top of the page is reduced to [[Administrivia/BrevityIsWit "Brevity is [...] wit"]] at a Reader's Digest essay contest.* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' pokes fun at the trope by having Kyle and two other people being imprisoned by Apple for experiments because they signed the agreement when their software had updated, even though Kyle and the others couldn't be bothered to read the EULA due to the massive text walls.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]* Due to outdated equipment that attempts to save on memory and bandwidth, official messages within the U.S. Coast Guard (and possibly other branches of the military) tend to be eye-crossing, migraine-creating, acronym-laden all-caps nightmares.** Here's a sample from one (imagine trying to read multiple pages of this): SUBJ: REVISED CUTTER FUEL INVENTORY REPORT REQUIREMENTS A. SUPPLY POLICY AND PROCEDURES MANUAL, COMDTINST M4400.19 1. PURPOSE: ACCURATELY REPORTING FUEL CONSUMPTION IS AN IMPORTANT ELEMENT TO ENSURING ALL OBLIGATIONS AND EXPENDITURES ARE RECORDED IN THE COAST GUARD FINANCIAL SYSTEM, A VITAL STEP IN ACHIEVING CFO AUDIT SUCCESS. THIS MESSAGE UPDATES THE STANDARDIZED FUEL REPORT MESSAGE FORMAT AND PROVIDES SUGGESTIONS TO REDUCE COMMON REPORTING ERRORS. IT ALSO ESTABLISHES NEW LINE ITEMS IN THE REPORT TO INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING MONTH'S ESTIMATED FUEL CONSUMPTION, WHICH WILL ASSIST IN IMPROVING THE ACCURACY OF COAST GUARD FINANCIAL STATEMENTS, END OF YEAR PIPELINE, AND CFO AUDIT COMPLIANCE. EVERY EFFORT WAS MADE TO ENSURE REPORTING REQUIREMENTS MINIMIZE, TO THE EXTENT POSSIBLE, IMPACT TO CUTTER WORKLOAD.* A lot of the last usage licenses are like this.* Pretty much every educator in Public Speaking or similar will strongly warn you against letting this happen to your slide show presentations that you make in Powerpoint or similar software. Instead it's preferred that you combined small doses of text such as bulleted lists with graphical visual aids, and let your actual speech be solely responsible for any {{InfoDump}}ing that you need to do.* Creator/FrancisEDec's rants are like [[http://www.bentoandstarchky.com/dec/MRFRCrant.jpg this]]. The text covers every inch of the page, with no paragraph breaks, opening, ending, and mostly without any kind of title. * UsefulNotes/{{Unix}} manual pages. This eventually got so bad that a new system, ''info'', was invented. And there was much rejoicing amongst the TTY jockeys.** Within Unix terminals, the ''less'' command is for downplaying this Trope. It parses manuals (or other texts) one line or screen at time for the user to read at their own pace, instead of spitting out a wall of text that the user then has to scroll back and forth through to read.* Website/AdTurds once featured [[http://adturds.co.uk/2010/11/04/tell-me-what-this-baffling-job-description-means/ this incoherent, babbling, jargon-filled mess of a job description,]] which isn't exactly helped by [[WantonCrueltyToTheCommonComma some of the worst grammar to ever exist in something that was supposed to attract people to the job]]: [[NoPunctuationPeriod three full stops in the entire block of text]], random capitalisation, and abuse of apostrophes. This borderline word salad was more likely to have put people ''off'' applying than it was to generate recruits.--> Zola the Gorgon (commenter on blog): "I think someone wrote this ad by running a mission statement generator (e.g. http://www.isms.org.uk/mission... and cutting and pasting all the results into a solid block of text until they met their wordcount."* Most contracts and user agreements. Unfortunately, 'I didn't read the contract! It was too long!' won't do you any good in court.[[note]]Though depending on where you live, the legality of many EULA terms is dubious.[[/note]]* Programming can get this way if you don't use white space properly, good luck trying to debug otherwise.* Students that are new in college tend to type their reports without formatting for paragraphs or don't use enough paragraphs, which can result in several pages of text walls. Professors of higher level classes may dock points off their students' papers for poor formatting since it makes it difficult for the professor to read the report to see what the student's main ideas are.* In the March 2017 government elections of the Netherlands, no less than 28 political parties and over 1000 candidates ran, resulting in [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/15/with-28-parties-running-dutch-voters-have-to-use-these-literally-enormous-ballots/?utm_term=.6601d43a21f2 this giant wall of paper and text to choose from]] (and yes, each line within each column on that paper represents a political candidate you can vote for). For foreign news reporters, especially from countries that traditionally have a two-party system like the U.S. and the U.K., this was remarkable, and the size of it was commented a lot on on BBC and CNN news.* Many an internet forum, including this site's forum, have some users who like writing a bit too much which occasionally results in this trope's appearance.[[/folder]]----